Page 35

Frontiers October 2013 Issue

PHOTOS: (Opposite page, clockwise from
left) Maintenance electrician Darrell Hill
(center), assisted by co-worker Robert Lisk,
installs a new LED (light-emitting diode)
light bulb in Seattle’s Integrated Aircraft Systems
Laboratory, or IASL; Brent Symens, a
test mechanic at the IASL hydraulics lab,
said the LED lights are an improvement; an
LED light shines brightly from the ceiling
of the IASL in Seattle. Marian Lockhart /Boeing
(This page) LED floor lights illuminate the
underside of an F-15 wing in St. Louis
for Cody Morgan, left, and his manager,
Bobby Deadmond. ron bookout/Boeing
BEOING FRONTIERS / OCTOBER 2013 35
technology to improve its infrastructure,
according to Keith Warner, Shared Services’
senior manager of Environmental
and Utilities Services. The switch is also
helping Boeing to continue reducing its
energy use. From 2007 to 2012, Boeing
saw its energy consumption decrease by
3 percent and is now focused on carbon
neutral growth for its operations over the
next five years, Warner said.
In general, LEDs last two to four times
longer and are 50 to 60 percent more
energy-efficient than a standard halogen
bulb, Warner said.
And even though LED lights may cost
more to install, they last much longer,
which means fewer replacement changeouts
are needed. And when the lights
are on a tall factory ceiling, that’s a big
benefit for maintenance personnel.
Before LEDs, “all the light was coming
straight down from the ceiling,” Warner
said. “It didn’t scatter well and there
were some very dark corners. The LEDs
have a much better lighting pattern.”
As another benefit, the LED lighting
gives the appearance of being closer
to daylight than other forms of artificial
lighting.
“It is more consistently bright,” Telford
said of LED lighting. “It’s a bluer color that
we see as white. And they spread the light
out more evenly across the floor.”
LED lighting also was recently installed
in two production bays of the C-17 Globemaster
III assembly line in Long Beach,